Silver Key
by BluePlastic
Summary: Some strange things happen to JJ when he goes home sick... NEW: Chapter 3! yay!
1. Default Chapter

A/N – Hi, everyone! This is the first fanfic I've ever written! It's a crossover of sorts, involving my own characters (well, just one, I guess) and the setting of one of my stories, which has yet to be published. There's a lot of exposition in the story, which I know is bad style and I normally wouldn't use, but I had this story in my head and I know that other people don't know the plot or milieu of my original story, so I had to insert some sort of clunky explanations. I hope I won't be judged too harshly **sweatdrop**  
  
Warnings: angst, violence, lime in later chapters.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own JJ, Sanami Matoh does. I do own Michael Slaiby,  
Alessandretta degli Argenti and the "Silver Key" story arc and setting  
in which most of this fic occurs. 

Silver Key

by BluePlastic

  


JJ shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to focus on the files in front of him through a thick haze of exhaustion. His joints burned with pain, the urge to cry out whenever he moved nearly overcoming the limits of his stoicism. 

"Hey, JJ," Drake said sleepily, rubbing his eyes as he walked into their office. "You're here early."

"Yeah, I had a lot of stuff to read through. I meant to do it last night, but I was really tired." 

Drake put his armload of papers down, a look of shock passing over his  
face. "You were tired? Really?"

"I know it seems less possible than aliens landing on your head, but yes, I get tired sometimes," JJ said teasingly. 

Drake took a closer look at his partner, really taking in the circles under his eyes and the pallor that had invaded his face. "You look like crap, man."

"You're looking quite dashing yourself, Drake," JJ said, his tone of high sarcasm somewhat marred by the coughing fit that followed.

Drake rushed out of the office and across the hall, quickly filling a small cup at the water cooler and bringing it to JJ. "You ok, man?"

JJ sucked down all the water in one gulp. "Thanks," he wheezed, struggling to catch his breath.

"Seriously, JJ, are you alright? Maybe you should go home and rest. If you push yourself, you'll just get sicker."

JJ's heart warmed at the tone of genuine concern in his partner's voice, thoughts of angling for a hug next chased out of his mind by the desire to not give Drake whatever sickness he was suffering from. "Maybe," he admitted. "There's so much to do, though..."

"Don't worry about it. I'll cover for ya," Drake said with a wink. "Go home and rest. I'll tell the chief that you have the plague and that we should sacrifice a goat to protect the precinct. You think he'd like that?"

"I think he'd kick you into next week. Too bad I won't be here to watch," JJ said, grinning despite the flares of pain that went through his knees as he stood up. He put on his coat, buttoning it with aching fingers, and slung his bright blue scarf around his neck. "Drake? Thanks  
a lot."

"Hey, no problem, man," Drake said with a grin. "Call me up if you need  
anything."

***  
  
JJ trudged up the stairs to his apartment, cheeks still burning from the harsh bite of the February air. He cursed the broken elevator as he ascended five floors, head swimming all the while. _Trust me to get the flu when no one else has it_, he thought bitterly.

He opened the door to his apartment, pushing aside the small stack of junk mail that had pooled under the mail slot with his foot as he entered the dim, silent living room and kicked off his shoes.  
Heading into the bedroom, he got out of his work clothes and in a soft pair of light blue flannel pajamas which his mom had given him for Christmas several years ago and which he always donned when he was sick.  
He walked over to the bathroom, enjoying the contrast of the cool tiles under his feet with the unhealthy warmth that was creeping through his body. He brushed his teeth, trying to avoid his own gaze in the mirror. He hated seeing himself when sickness had eaten away at the normal  
bright chipperness in his face. Even though he knew it was only temporary, he always felt a chill, like he was looking into the eyes of a dead person.  
He walked over to the living room bookshelf, searching the rows of neatly arranged volumes for something easy that he hadn't read eighteen times already. His eyes finally settled on a digest-sized, glossy volume with a dark blue spine that he didn't immediately recognize.  
He pulled it from the row, eyes brightening with recognition as soon as he saw the cover, from which a green eyed man with black hair stared piercingly, clutching to his chest the faint, ghostly form of a young woman with long blue hair. Printed in silver letters above the figures  
were the words "Silver Key", and below and to the right, "Written by Sarah F. Starr/Art by Yukiko Nakajima".  
_"C'mon take it, you'll like it," his cousin had urged, pressing the book into his hands.  
"I don't like this type of thing, Hannah," he had complained, pushing it back towards her. "I don't like comic books."  
"This one's about a cop though! He's like, in the FBI, but it's the future! And isn't he cute?"_

  


"He is cute, I'll give her that," he muttered to himself, taking the book and walking with it into the bedroom. He settled into bed, drawing the covers over himself and curling up against the bank of fluffy pillows before opening it and beginning to scan over the pages, quickly becoming engrossed by the story and the accompanying artwork. 

  


Suddenly, he felt a shock go through his body, a jarring vibration followed by pain in his chest and his face. He gasped for air against a hard surface that was so close to his mouth that he could taste its thick, oily scent. "What the fuck?" he groaned, bracing his hands against the roughness of this surface and struggling to his feet.

He found himself standing on a dimly lit street, the concrete sidewalk from which he had just arisen newly paved and unmarred by cracks. Tall buildings surrounded him, anonymous and glittering, betraying precious little about where he was or how he had arrived there as he walked on, looking for clues.

A white building to his right caught his eye, swooping in a familiar, swaybacked way into the sky, the word "Grace" posted on its front in tall letters. //The Grace building...does that mean..//

A few steps forward confirmed what he had been thinking as the short, brick and grey exterior of a blocks-wide building sprawled into his vision. //Grand Central...// He calculated in his head for a moment, trying to think how on earth he got here from his apartment in Queens

and didn't remember the journey, which would have necessitated several subway line transfers and a good deal of walking.

A low voice hissed from a dark place to his left. "Hey, little boy, where's your off, huh? What you doin' here all alone?"

Inured to the harsher denizens of the city by years spent as a cop and still more years of living alone in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood, he ignored the voice and kept walking. He approached the corner of 42nd Street and crossed, weaving between cars, relying on luck and timing to carry him to the other side safely. He stepped quickly to the doors that led into Grand Central Station, pulling one open and walking inside. 

The first thing he noticed was the silence – a lack of noise so pronounced that a faint hum began in his ears as his brain endeavored to prove that all circuits were indeed online and functional. As he entered the large central room of the station, he gasped to see it almost completely empty. There were always people in Grand Central, even in the middle of the night – and one glance at the large clock perched on top of the information kiosk in the center of the room showed it to be 8:30 p.m., far too early to even partially excuse this level of quietness in the station. He nervously began to cross the empty room toward the arched doorway that led to the subway entrance, desperately wishing that he had his gun.

"Mmm, what's this?" a voice hissed from his left, accompanied by a stirring of movement in his peripheral vision. "A little emmy, all alone? Where's your off, huh? Who let a cute little thing like you cross the gate alone?"

JJ kept his eyes trained straight ahead, ignoring the slight fluttering of confusion and fear in his throat just as he ignored the voice.

"Why won't you talk to me, little emmy? You know it's rude to ignore someone who's talking to you. Hey, I'm talking to you...JJ..."

JJ froze. "How do you know my name?" he asked cautiously, his voice wavering and tense.

The figure drew closer, filling the air between them with the shrill sound of laughter. "What, are they keeping you under rocks now in the MRs?" He approached JJ, laying a hand on his shoulder before leaning and sniffing his neck. "Ah, well, it don't matter if you're stupid, little emmy. You smell good..."

JJ turned to face the figure, who, as he saw now, was a dirty young man who looked about 17 years old. He shoved him back, knocking him to the ground. "Don't touch me," he said, trying to sound threatening.

"Oh, so you're a feisty one, huh?" the young man said. "Fine, have it your way..."

JJ barely had a second to register the young man's lunge towards him before he was caught in bruisingly strong fingers and shoved against the wall, the marble sending screams of pain through his body upon impact. 

The other man looked at him with eyes full of dark fury. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to wander in strange places at night?" he growled, leaning close to JJ's ear. "Good thing for me that she didn't..."

A sharp pain tore through JJ's consciousness, elicting a strangled scream from him that echoed against the vaulted ceiling of the room. His mind scrambled for a moment, trying to reconcile what was happening to him with some sort of reality. The other man had his mouth pressed against his throat, and the pain radiated out of that point of contact, sending threads of electric ache into his face and down his arm. He was vaguely aware of the utterly absurd sound of suckling just below his ear, the sound of someone drinking their soup rapidly, _And look, some of it spilled_, he thought, casting his gaze down to the floor, where some drops had fallen. _It's so...red..._ He felt himself falling into a sort of warm, fuzzy dream, the absurdity of the situation seeming to fade, to be replaced with helpless complacency.

"Let him go," said a cold voice from behind them.

TBC...

  
  
  



	2. Out Of Time

Silver Key

Chapter Two

JJ's head lolled weakly as the vampire removed his mouth from his throat in order to speak. "And who the fuck are you? Find your own damn prey, huh?"

"I'm a SSK agent, you cocky little shit, so I really strongly encourage you to let him go."

JJ saw the gleam of a badge through dimmed eyes as the vampire dropped him and turned with terror towards the owner of the voice, a tall, black-clad man who, somehow, looked incredibly familiar.

"Ummm...I don't want any trouble, sir..." the vampire stammered, cowering slightly.

The tall man leaned in, eyes full of steely fire. "You know this is not allowed," he hissed. "Now, run, and I won't chase you...but I will remember you. And if I ever see you so much as steal a toothpick again...I'll kill you. I promise."

The vampire offered no response before running towards the subway on feet so swift that JJ's eyes could barely track him before he vanished around the corner. "Hnnh...uhh...thank you..." he breathed, trying to focus his eyes on his rescuer.

  


What's your name, boy?" the tall man said coldly, kneeling down next to him. 

"Juh..JJ. JJ Adams," he muttered, feeling unsteady, as if the wall behind him might turn to vapor at any moment. 

The man leaned in, his nose mere centimeters from JJ's face. "And tell me, JJ...are you familiar with the Mortal Restriction Act, by any chance?"

"Huh?" JJ groaned, beginning to find it hard to keep his eyes open.

"Where's your M-pass?" the man continued, reaching into JJ's pockets and beginning to search them.

"Huh? What're you talking about? Quit grabbin' me..." JJ said, fighting back weakly.

"Your M-Pass! Your ID, you know? What are you, touched or something?" He grabbed at JJ's back pocket and removed his wallet. "Since when do they give you money in the MR?" he muttered, rifling through the modest amount of cash in the wallet. "And credit cards...did you steal this from a museum or something?"

"N...no..." JJ whispered, feeling increasingly dreamy. "My..unhh..license is in there..."

"License?" the tall man said, eyes narrowing. He found the license and tilted it in the light, looking at it with undisguised amazement. "A...driver's license? From...before the Dying? But the dates are after the Dying..." He looked at JJ with something like fear in his eyes. "Where did you get this?"

"Ah...at the...DMV..." His eyelids fluttered, and he let out an involuntary gasp as black fireworks exploded in his vision.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, you living people are so annoying," the tall man said, pulling a small vial out of his pocket. "Here, drink some of this, you'll feel better."

JJ reached out and grasped the small glass vessel with shaking fingers. Raising it to his lips, he drank from it greedily, only stopping when the tall man lay his hand over his and gently pulled it away from his mouth. He felt a surge of vitality go through him, pulling him back from the brink.

"There, you're a little better now, eh?" the tall man said, offering a slight smile.

"Y-yeah. I feel much better, actually..." He looked up at the other man with fearful eyes. "I really don't understand what you're talking about, though, sir...I was just reading a book, and then I was here, and everything is weird...and was that guy a _vampire_?"

"Yes, he was," the tall man said with a small, rumbling laugh. "And so am I." He curled his lip, showing a long, pearlescent fang, giving another small laugh at JJ's look of fear. "Don't worry, I'm not going to bite you. Unlike that guy, I'm not a criminal lowlife. I'm sort of a cop, really." He smiled, hiding his fangs discreetly so that the smile was more pleasant than scary. "My name is Michael Slaiby," he said, extending his hand to shake. 

"Umm...JJ Adams, like I said before," he said, taking Michael's hand as a sudden recognition came over his face. "You—you're in the book I was reading!"

"What?" Michael said, recoiling as if burned. "There's...a book about me?"

"It was this comic book called 'Silver Key'...I didn't get much past the beginning, but you were in it, and a girl named...Dressie, or something like that?"

"Essie. Or Dretta," he murmured. "She was my girlfriend, once." His eyes sparkled with sadness and curiosity. "What did it say about us?"

  


"Like I said, I was right at the beginning, but you were sleeping off a hangover from some big party you went to, and then Essie came to the door and surprised you...you hadn't seen her in years, but you were really happy to see her...you had a sex scene, I think, and then, when you woke up again, you were very sick, and she was trying to take care of you but you just got worse and worse...and then I don't remember any more...I would say I fell asleep, but it's like I fell here, instead of asleep..."

  


Michael closed his eyes, trying and failing to conceal his emotional reaction. "We just slept beside one another, actually, but I suppose this person is allowed her dramatic license." He stared at the wall about six inches to the right of JJ's head. "Essie was...so long ago...so many years ago..." His eyes glazed with tears even as his face pinched with disgust at the weakness this displayed. "Her ghost doesn't even come for me anymore..."

  


JJ looked away discreetly, guessing that the vampire would not want to be seen in such a state. "W..what year is this?" he asked, the absurdity of the question lingering sourly in his mouth. 

  


Michael forcibly stopped his tears, a pensive look coming over his face as he considered the question. "130 years after the Dying...I think that makes it 2129, by the old calendars...there's not much use for time anymore..." He looked at JJ quizzically. "Why? What year do you think it is?"

"It's 2003...October 12, I think..." he answered breathlessly. "What the hell is going on?" he half-whimpered, the ill ease of the situation hitting him at full force.

  


"I don't know...but you're here, now, and there are some problems with that..."

  


Before JJ could answer, Michael caught his eyes in a hypnotizing stare, brilliant green fire seeming to gaze into his soul and relax him against his will. He felt himself beginning to fade, his vision clouding and turning grey as he slumped forward helplessly.

  


Michael gathered JJ's slumbering weight into his arms, lifting him effortlessly as he turned towards the entrance to the subway. "We'll talk about this some more at my place," he whispered into JJ's unhearing ear. "You adorable little thing..."

  


A/N: hi! *sweatdrops* I know it's still really confusing, but I promise there'll be some exposition in the next chapter that will clear some stuff up. Please bear with me *charming grin*

Thanks to the people who reviewed! I'll be working on this as much as I can, to get something out there that makes sense of it all :) until then...ja ne!


	3. Remembrance of Things Past

A/N: Here it is! This is the one with the giant info dump of exposition in it. Sorry about that, but there's really no other way to do it without this being novel length and even more confusing. Hopefully, you'll find Michael's chatter at least marginally interesting...

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys make me want to be productive on this, which is great.

Also, to Kinneas: Silver Key is a story idea I came up with in 1997. It is my own creation, and I want to make a manga style comic series out of it someday, but it is not yet published (or, truthfully, written ;;^^). The artist is totally fictional, while the author's name bears an, ummm, resemblance to mine. hee.

Warnings for this chapter: BIG angst, descriptions of some icky stuff. 

Silver Key

Chapter 3: Remembrance of Things Past

  


JJ woke surrounded by warm, pleasant smells and soft pillows. He lay still a moment, luxuriating in the slight fuzziness that permeated his consciousness. A gentle tremor lay over him like a blanket, a feeling like 2 a.m. after 6 beers, when the world is soft-focus and everything is funny. He let out a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a sigh as he rubbed his face against the velvety surface of a pillowcase, unwilling to come completely into the land of the living just yet.

  


"Ah, you're finally up," said a voice behind him.

  


JJ craned his head backward to see Michael silhouetted in the doorway against the brighter light of what looked like a kitchen. "H-how long was I asleep?"

  


"Just a couple hours," Michael said reassuringly, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. "I could have gotten you up as soon as we got back here, but you looked so peaceful that I didn't want to disturb you." He leaned down slightly and touched JJ's cheek with a familiarity that caused a blush to form under the gentle caress. "You're really cute when you sleep, you know that?"

  


"Ummm...thanks," JJ said, his blush growing more intense. 

  


"You're so nervous," Michael cooed, his voice deep but gentle, its low tones somehow reassuring. "What're you afraid of?"

  


"Well, ummm...I'm in this weird place, and I don't really understand what's going on, and, ummm...you're a vampire..."

  


"I know my apartment is sort of messy, but I don't think it's weird, really," Michael said drily, smiling at the almost annoyed expression that came to JJ's eyes. "No, no, I know what you mean." He got up from the bed, smiling down at JJ as broadly as he could while still hiding his fangs. "Are you hungry?"

  


"Y-yes," JJ said, the suggestion bringing awareness of this condition to his still-sleepy mind. "I'm starving, actually."

  


"I ordered out for some food while you were sleeping, but I saved some for you,"

Michael said, heading back into the kitchen. "Do you like sweet and sour or wonton soup better?"

  


"Hmmm...wonton, I guess," JJ replied, a note of surprise evident in his voice.

  


"Ok, cool," Michael said over the sound of rifling through cabinets and drawers. "Just sit up in bed and I'll bring it out to you, alright?"

  


"Ok!" JJ called out, pushing himself into a sitting position, placing some of the numerous pillows behind him so that he wasn't sitting directly against the hard wall. 

After several minutes of continued drawer-searching, whirring and beeping, Michael emerged from the kitchen carrying a small wooden tray with a bowl of wonton soup, a spoon, some crunchy noodles and two cans of Coke, which he put down in JJ's lap after taking one of the cans of Coke for himself. "I hope you like Coke. It's all I have." He gave a little nervous laugh. " I'm really sort of addicted to the stuff."

  


JJ picked up the spoon, pausing before dipping it into the soup. "I thought vampires couldn't eat regular food."

  


Michael pulled a dusty antique looking chair from a corner, placing it next to the bed before sitting down and pulling a straw out of his pocket, which he stuck into the can of Coke as he opened it. "Ah, yeah, that's one of those weird myths about being a vampire. Maybe it's true for those vampires that are like zombies with fangs, but vampires like me are still basically alive, so we can eat whatever we want. Of course, you still have to drink blood, no matter how much Chinese food you eat." He let out a small, low laugh. "Your metabolism gets a great tune up when you change over, though. I can eat like a pig and never exercise and I still look just like I did before..." His eyes became pained, and he looked down for a moment before continuing. "...before the Dying." 

  


JJ regarded him uncomfortably, waiting for him to look up again before speaking. "Do you think...will it upset you too much...to explain what all this is about? Why the world is...so different now?"

Michael blinked at him, momentarily confused by embarrassment. "Oh, man, of course. No problem. You're probably pretty confused, right? I mean, tell me a little about what it's like where you're from, so I can figure out what the most important things to tell you are. Otherwise, we could be here all week, you know? I could just read your mind, of course, but that just seems sort of rude when you can tell me instead." JJ looked pensive for a moment. "Hmmm...well, like I told you before, it's 2003...people just sort of live their lives, I guess. The only vampires I know of are crazy people and goth teenagers who wear fangs to nightclubs. Personally, I live in Queens in this really small apartment with a cat named Noodles. I'm a police detective with the 27th Precinct of the NYPD. There's war, terrorism, famine, disease, stupid people...you know, pretty much situation normal for this planet."

Michael let out an inadvertently high laugh. "Heh, that's a way to put it, alright." He looked pensive for a moment before speaking again. "Well, I would guess that if you went anywhere outside the United States today, it would probably be pretty much what you'd have thought the 'future' would be like if you lived 135 years ago – y'know, pretty much the same with more pollution and cool gadgets. The big changes are just in the United States." A pained look invaded his face as he continued. "Somehow, where you live, it's different, but, here, on New Years Eve, 1999, a group of vampires – I guess they're sort of like vampire terrorists – released this virus they'd been working on over all the New Year's Eve parties in major cities in the U.S." He paused, ordering his thoughts before continuing. "See, since...well, since whenever, thousands of years, there have always been vampires. What makes you a vampire was never any mystical voodoo stuff...it was a virus. No one really knows how it originated, but once there got to be enough vampires around to have a sort of organized consensus on this stuff, they named it Eurydice. After the Greek myth, you know?"

JJ paused, a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth. "Yeah, I do know that one. She doesn't really come back from the dead, though, does she?"

"Yeah, I know. I wonder about that too. Just proves that we weren't the ones who came up with the name, huh?" He laughed a little. "Anyway, the Eurydice virus is pretty easy to contain. It only lives in blood, and if it's exposed to air it dies pretty quickly. So, basically, the only way to make a new person into a vampire was to do the typical Anne Rice type thing where the vampire gets you nice and weak by drinking most of your blood and then feeds you some of his. The virus is very small, and almost everyone has some tiny cut in their mouth where it can get in. If you wanted to be extra sure, you could rub some vampire blood on the wounds in the victim's neck. But that was how it was...turning someone was a one on one thing and the new vampires were usually chosen for good reasons, like that they were really smart or kind or something like that. There were maybe 5000 vampires in the entire world, and most of them just kept to themselves, making money through investments and stuff, supporting charities and the arts, having fun, all that good stuff."

He sucked on his straw emphatically, scowling. "But, of course, some of them were total bastards who thought living people were scum, and a few of those got together sometime in the mid 1960s and decided they were going to make themselves the dominant species once and for all. So, they turned a lot of scientists with low moral standards and started working on a new strain of Eurydice, one that could be transmitted like a cold or flu and would spread really fast. It took them a long time, but they got it down, and those New Year's Eve parties were the world premiere of their little project." 

He shuddered, putting his soda down on the floor next to the leg of the chair. "I was at the big party in Times Square. I was 19, but I had a really good fake ID and I was drinking like a fish, having a grand old time. At around 11 o'clock, maybe, these small planes flew in pretty low over us and dropped all these blue and silver balloons. No one thought much about it...the cops chased them and caught them later for flying so low, but by then the damage was done. By the end of the night, most of the balloons were broken, and everyone had plenty of time to breathe in what was in them." A tear began to form, welling up in the bottom of his eye at the memory. "Now we get to what you read in that book. I came home, drunker than hell, and passed out in bed. In the morning, I got woken up by someone knocking on the door, and it was Essie. Now, Essie had wanted to come to college with me in New York City, but her parents forced her to stay local and go to Tulane. When I left for school, it was pretty much a 'take your shit and get out' situation, so I hadn't seen her in about two years. I was so happy." Tears began to escape down his cheeks as he continued through sobs. "She was my first love, you know. My only friend when we were kids, and then we fell in love when we were teenagers. I pretty much assumed that she was pissed off at me for leaving, cause she never answered my letters, and that I was never going to see her again, and then she came and surprised me. Turns out her dad had been throwing the letters away before she saw them. He was always such a jerk." He blinked and shook his head, snapping himself out of his tangent. "Anyway, the next two days with her were great. But then...I started getting sick." He shuddered, his tears giving away to a look of disgust. "It was really nasty. It starts out like the flu...your joints hurt, you feel dizzy and run a fever, all that stuff. But then...you start to bleed. With most people, it starts with nosebleeds, but then you start crying blood, and coughing up blood and then throwing up blood everywhere. Essie was so good to me, trying to take care of me, but then she started getting sick too. We just huddled together, shivering, too weak to even get up and shower off all the blood, for a few days, and then she sort of fell into a coma, I guess. She was always sort of sickly. I tried to hold on...I thought maybe if I toughed it out, the fever would break and I would be able to get up and get some help for her. I didn't even care if I died, just as long as she was okay. I managed to stay awake for maybe another day and a half before everything just sort of washed out." He laughed bitterly. "The first thing I did when I got up was take a shower. I dragged her in with me...I guess I was in denial, thinking she would wake up soon. I called 911 and there was no answer. I carried her out in the street – I was going to take her to the hospital myself – and saw...a warzone. There were dead people everywhere, people screaming, and vampires everywhere. I was convinced I was dreaming at first but then, slowly, I realized that this was real, that something had happened to the world...and to me." He managed a thin smile. "I'll spare you all that 'I'm an angsty new vampire' stuff, though. I'm sure you've read books. Anyway, the plague went on, just spreading like wildfire, for two weeks, maybe. Millions of people died. I sat with Essie for most of that time, not watching the news, picking rats out of the walls while I watched her eyes get cloudy and her skin start to turn green. By the time that some of the more good hearted vampires had come to the fore and taken control of the situation, there were only about five million living people left in the whole country, and about 10 million vampires. Everyone else was dead. That was the Dying."

He got up and stood next to the bed. "Are you done with the soup?"

"S-sure," JJ said, his voice thin and wavering as Michael picked up the tray from his lap.

"Do you want another Coke?", Michael asked, retreating towards the kitchen with the tray.

"No, thank you," JJ said, managing a polite smile. 

"Suit yourself," Michael replied, disappearing into the brightly lit kitchen.

JJ waited a few moments, listening to the cranky banging of dishes being roughly tossed into sink and dishwasher, before carefully getting out of bed and walking into the kitchen himself to find Michael shaking with silent sobs as he rinsed out the soup bowls, bracing his elbows against the counter to keep from falling down, looking so broken-hearted and so young in that moment that JJ felt a tug at his heart, wondering for a moment what it must be like to know a grief that really would never end, instead of one that just seemed that way.

Without thinking for too long, he walked up to Michael and hugged him around the waist, resting his head on Michael's bent back. "You don't have to be ashamed," he said quietly. "What happened to her...what happened to _you_ was awful."

"I had to throw her body down the garbage chute," Michael moaned, almost too quiet to be heard. "There were too many to bury...they had to burn them, and I couldn't let them do that to her...I dressed her up nice and threw her away, and no one cared but me...."

"I care," JJ whispered, feeling tears begin to sting his eyes. 

Michael turned away from the sink, causing JJ to lose his grip on him. "Do you? Do you care?" he asked, in a tone that wanted to be sarcastic and angry, but came out pleading and desperate.

JJ looked up in Michael's reddened eyes, seeing the bright spark that resided there even in this moment of grief, and summoned up his most gentle smile. "Of course I care. I know what it's like, a little...I know what it's like to be sad, at least...."

"Sorry about this," Michael whispered, staring back into JJ's eyes. JJ could feel his mind being invaded and read, a feeling not so much unpleasant as disturbing, like insects crawling over his skin.

"You're not lying..." Michael said finally, blinking so that the connection was broken. "Most mortals don't know what real sadness is. Most vampires don't even know. But you...you know what it's like to feel...nothing's happened to you like...what I just told you about...but you feel the things that have happened to you so truly. You love people and trust them." Michael stepped forward, crouching down slightly so that he was face to face with JJ. "_Junjoukaren_..." he whispered, leaning in close and pressing his lips against JJ's with a feather light touch. 

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this, minna! I hope it wasn't too gross. I do err on that side occasionally. Feel free to tell me in the reviews if you think it took it too far :) Next up: the lime! Ooh, citrus! We like that :) And, more exposition! But only a little, hee.


End file.
